Jennifer De Beer, Open Access scholarly communication in South Africa : a role for National Information Policy in the National System of Innovation, a Master's Thesis in Information Science at Stellenbosch University, 2005. From the abstract: 'South African science shows a decline in its global competitiveness in that its scholarly publication rate has not kept pace with that of other countries, both developed and developing. This, together with a decline in publication rate especially among junior South African scholars, suggests a structural problem in the South African national system of innovation....The empirical part of this study (Chapters 4 and 5) in turn consist of two parts....Both empirical studies were used to assess levels of activity and extent of adoption of Open Access within a defined South African scholarly community, one discipline-based, the other institution-based. The aims of this study were two-fold: to assess levels of awareness of and investment in Open Access modes of scholarly communication within defined scholarly communities; and to create a benchmark document of South Africa’s involvement to date in various Open Access initiatives. The argument is made for the openness of scholarly systems, and furthermore that the disparate and uncoordinated nature of Open Access in South Africa needs a policy intervention. The policy intervention so identified would exist within an enabling policy environment and would be minimally disruptive to the South African science system. Said policy intervention would constitute a National Information Policy since it would address the storage, dissemination, and retrieval of scholarly research output. This thesis recommends the amendment of the current statutory reporting mechanism - used by scholars to report and obtain publication rate subsidies – which would require that scholars make their research available via an Open Access mode of scholarly communication, and moreover, would require scholars to report on having done so.'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 2/07/2005 10:11:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
